Cranston plays Lyndon B. Johnson in Robert Schenkkan's political drama, which was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Bryan Cranston isn’t the only one making his Broadway debut
right now.

Bill Rauch, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, directs the Breaking
Bad star in All the Way, which
opened to positive reviews yesterday, March 6. Cranston plays Lyndon B. Johnson
in the political drama, which explores how the president cajoled and
strong-armed a stubborn Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The
play, by Robert Schenkkan—who won the Pulitzer for The Kentucky Cycle—was commissioned by OSF and had its premiere, sans
Cranston, in Ashland last year. It’s the first OSF commission to hit Broadway.

In his review for The
New York Times, Charles Isherwood says Cranston delivers a “heat-generating
performance.” “With his wide mouth often agape in a devouring, almost
sinister smile, Mr. Cranston’s Johnson often looks like a snake rising
threateningly above a mouse as he prepares to make a meal of it,” he writes.
Rauch, Isherwood says, has directed the production “solidly if a little
stolidly.”

The Washington Postdescribes Cranston as "effortlessly captivating." Rauch’s
direction might be a “civics-class approach,” but one that compels you “to
reflect on the current paralytic condition of Washington.” (Variety, meanwhile, suggeststaking up a collection to "send every one of those clowns in Congress" to the show.)

All the Way
is the first of Schenkkan’s two plays about LBJ. The second, The Great Society, debuts at OSF this summer.